At an unofficial forum in Chicago, witnesses described fear and disruption during the Trump administration’s Operation Midway Blitz, including a sharp decline at a family restaurant, arrests rising from 760 in September to 2,074 in October, and accounts of peo
On the first Sunday of last September, Marcos Carbajal’s family restaurant was serving food at a professional soccer match in suburban Bridgeview—families out, fans celebrating, the kind of day that usually steadies a business.
A few miles away, federal immigration agents were arresting a flower vendor in Chicago’s Archer Heights neighborhood. Carbajal said the vendor was deported within days.
Carbajal told a federal civil rights commissioner Wednesday that those images—one close enough to see. another close enough to feel—were part of what changed everything as the Trump administration’s Operation Midway Blitz kicked off. Customers began calling to ask whether workers could bring food to their cars. Families who came every Sunday stopped coming. Staff and neighbors, he said, started checking social media for immigration enforcement activity before commuting.
At the peak of the deportation campaign, Carbajal said revenue fell dramatically at his restaurant’s Little Village, Gage Park and Pilsen locations. “The numbers told the same story: When people are afraid, they stay home,” he said.
Carbajal was among several Chicago-area residents. lawyers and advocates who spoke at the University of Illinois Chicago’s downtown law school during an unofficial hearing called the “People’s Hearing on Immigration Enforcement.” The forum was hosted by the Hispanic Federation. a national nonprofit. and organizers said it was designed to build a public record and support efforts for investigations. policy changes and possible criminal charges against federal agents.
Rochelle Garza, chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. helped facilitate the hearing and said the testimony could bring “transparency and accountability — and hopefully justice.” Garza also made clear that the forum was not an official proceeding of the commission. The commission is an independent, bipartisan federal agency that advises the president and Congress on civil rights issues. It does not prosecute cases, but it can investigate civil rights concerns and produce reports and recommendations.
The commission has been pursuing similar approaches. A “people’s hearing” was held in March in Minnesota. where a report was published this week and state prosecutors filed charges Monday against an U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in the January shooting of a Venezuelan immigrant in Minneapolis. Another people’s hearing is set to be held in June in Los Angeles.
Several speakers tied the impact in Chicago to Operation Midway Blitz reaching beyond arrests. describing a citywide atmosphere that they said left neighborhoods on edge. They pointed to the fatal shooting of Silverio Villegas González in Franklin Park. the shooting of Marimar Martinez in Brighton Park. the use of tear gas during enforcement actions. and reports of people being detained at courthouses.
One witness who spoke anonymously said he was leaving work for lunch in September when three vehicles with emergency lights but no clear agency markings pulled him over. Within seconds, he said, agents were at his window asking for his identification. He showed them his driver’s license. but he said they opened his door. put him in handcuffs and placed him in one of the vehicles.
“I thought I was being careful,” he said.
The man said he was detained at the immigration processing center in west suburban Broadview for 24 hours before being held for four months at a detention center in Baldwin. Michigan. He said he had no chance to seek bail and little opportunity to make his case despite having lived in the United States for 26 years. paying taxes for two decades. having a U.S. citizen son and having no criminal record.
“All the people that I was able to meet during these four months, were hard-working people,” he said. “I don’t really understand what is the reason for the government to keep us locked up.”
Demonstrating the scale of enforcement, a report by UIC and the Hispanic Federation said Chicago-area immigration arrests rose to 760 in September and nearly tripled to 2,074 in October.
Even after most agents left the city, speakers said enforcement pressure continued. Sheila Bedi. an advisor to Mayor Brandon Johnson. told the hearing that immigration enforcement has not stopped in Chicago even after most agents left the city. She said federal agents were waiting outside domestic violence court Wednesday morning.
Rubén Castillo, a former federal judge who chaired an Illinois commission scrutinizing federal agents’ actions, said a separate request for a special prosecutor to investigate federal agents is another avenue for accountability. “This needs to stop,” Castillo said. “Justice to me is a courtroom.”
Berto Aguayo, an attorney and co-chair of the Rapid Response Network at the Hispanic Lawyers Association of Illinois, said families described fear and trauma—children wondering whether loved ones would come back, and entire neighborhoods feeling “under siege.”
“Our communities were desperately looking for lawyers they could trust,” Aguayo said. “For many families, we were the only lawyers they knew personally. What happened here in Chicago during Operation Midway Blitz cannot be forgotten,” he said.
The sequence of testimony and numbers delivered a shared message: fear moved faster than the formal process. reaching businesses. commutes and court steps. Arrest figures tracked the escalation from September to October. while personal accounts described what that escalation felt like on the ground—waiting at windows. detention for months. and a sense that neighborhoods had to brace for what enforcement might do next.
Chicago Operation Midway Blitz immigration enforcement U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Rochelle Garza Hispanic Federation detention civil rights